Although both of their parents were international superstars, the Richards girls were raised in quiet Connecticut, where Keith and Patti still live, and where Alexandra and her director-cinematographer fiancé Jacques Naude, who hails from South Africa, go on the weekends to get away from fast-paced NYC.

“I loved growing up there,” she says. “A lot of people think I was raised in LA, but I’m like, ‘Noooo. I’m a Northeastern kinda chick.’ We had this little house in the woods, and we were so disconnected from the hustle and bustle. Although I didn’t know what that meant until we were obviously a lot older. Now I’m running home every weekend to my parents, like, ‘We’ll cook for you!’ It’s cozy. I’m a family girl.”

Alexandra loves Weston so much, it’s where she decided to get married. The reception was held last night at Lachat Town Farm.

An alert “06880” reader joined neighbors who watched from a distance. The Richards’ house is not far to the farm. Golf carts shuttled guests from the house. Other people arrived by small buses, earlier in the day.

The neighbors — who got their information from security guards — said the main course was lamb. Cheers could be heard, apparently during speeches and toasts.

The wedding tent at Lachat Farm.

Two people said Richards paid the town $15,000 to rent the farm, and another $20,000 for improvements.

Guards also said they did not think Mick Jagger was there.

A few of the people watching had garden plots at Lachat. They had been miffed at being discouraged from visiting their plots for a few days, as the site was readied for the reception.

Their spirits rose when they found out why. One woman said, “Alexandra could have had her wedding anywhere in the world, but she chose our little farm. What a feather in the town’s cap.”

Our correspondent did not have any information on the band that provided dance music.

Even aside from his musical talent, Keith Richards is an interesting guy. I read his autobiography a few years ago and was struck by what an involved parent he seems to have been, at least within the constraints of his lifestyle. I might have been a little skeptical of his own account here were it not for the fact that I have a friend in Weston who remembers running into him fairly incognito at a PTA meeting up there. How many international superstars show up at local PTA meetings?

There is a bit of a Westport connection here. Leon Lachat, who donated his property to Weston to be kept in perpetuity as a farm and open land, was a relative of the Wilkins and Castiglia families of Lyons Plains Road (and which you wrote about a while back). Jeff Wilkins, Staples ‘71, has many fond memories of visits to his uncle Leon’s including, believe it or not, skiing there in winters.

Jeff and I used to spend time after school just hanging out listening to records on the turntable in his parents’ living room (including the Stones naturally).

If someone had said to Jeff back in the 1960s, Keith Richards is going to have a daughter who will one day get married on Uncle Leon’s farm, we might have wondered what that person was inhaling,

Got to hand it to the Richards’ event planners and Weston’s Lachat committee for keeping this thing out of the press. In fact, Dan’s column here is the only result that comes up on the first page of Google. In Weston itself yesterday, there was absolutely no indication there was anything big going on in town unless you lived right next door to the venue.

Also if that is the whole wedding tent shown in the picture, that was quite a small affair, even by the standards of a non-celebrity family around here. Congrats Richards family, and thanks for demonstrating your good taste in an era of excess!

Leon would have been so pleased to see what the good people of Weston have done with his farm; It’s exactly as he wanted it to be used—for the good people of Weston, Westport, and the surrounding areas filled with people he loved. Thank you to the Lachat Farm Organization for keeping his dream alive. He’s smiling down right now.

I went to Lachat early this morning to water my garden and within minutes, I was met by the event planner. She told me the farm was still closed for a second event today, and said it would reopen this afternoon. I was a little peeved because I haven’t be able to get to my garden for a few days, but she wouldn’t budge. Right as we were at an impasse, she offered to water my garden. Sure! She asked me to point out the plot, and added that she’d pull a few weeds, if needed. How kind! As I was leaving, I saw a fellow gardener making her way to her plot and heard the wedding planner shout out, “what number is your plot? I’ll water it for you.”

When I was a kid in Weston, we used to visit Mrs. Lachat for….well, I don’t specifically remember, but it was some kind of farm product. Her name means “the cat” in French, and she was indeed French, living a very rustic life in Weston then (late 50s/early 60s). Wonderfully, she had a large brood of cats, all Manxes (no tails). My cousin acquired one when he was living in Fairfield and had that lovely animal for something like 20 years. I don’t know the history of the Lachat property, but it must be interesting.

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